Resettling at Curtin and exploring research

A big part of my focus, returning to Curtin’s campus in the last month and a half, has been trying to catch up on what other researchers here are doing. This has been a particularly good time for that, as there are a few interesting events happening for Curtin’s 2015 research week.

I’m honoured to have won the ECR prize for best humanities research chapter for Changing Facebook’s Architecture, part of the excellent collection on An Education in Facebook? put together by my colleagues Mike Kent and Tama Leaver. I’m especially grateful for Tama’s encouragement to enter the awards, which I might not have done otherwise.

The Humanities Research Celebration highlighted so much exciting work happening around Curtin, much of which I’m hoping to explore over coming months. Fiction by Kim Scott, Liz Byrski, and others; research by Elfie Shiosaki on Noongar political activism in the early 20th century; Thor Kerr’s recent book on community conservation in Fremantle; my colleagues’ work on disability activism, human-robot communications, online identity, and diaspora; and much more.

It’s great to be back, and I’m thinking a lot about the possibilities available in a space where there’s so much interesting work happening, and so many people trying to build inclusive, diverse, and critical networks and perspectives.